


Kiss Me

by DollyPop



Category: Soul Eater
Genre: Canon - Manga, Canon Era, Canon Het Relationship, F/M, First Kiss, Fluff, Kissing, Love, Romance, Wine
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-28
Updated: 2017-02-28
Packaged: 2018-09-27 10:35:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,024
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10011914
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DollyPop/pseuds/DollyPop
Summary: They'd spent too much time out on the run, together, gotten too comfortable. And, now, in a hotel room, all alone, she asks and he provides, and he runs his fingers through her hair, and he wants to kiss her.





	

_“Oh, kiss me beneath the milky twilight. Lead me out on the moonlit floor. Lift your open hand, strike up the band, and make the fireflies dance, silvermoon’s sparkling.  
So, kiss me.”_

* * *

 

It had been too many hard weeks and as much as he’d had no care for a mattress, before, he found that draping himself over one, now, was a luxury he was happy to indulge in. Across from him, Marie was sitting cross legged on the bed, looking rosy from the shower she had taken, the sleeves of the hotel-provided robe slowly coming down her arms. Surely, she appreciated not having to sleep outside far more that he did. 

As much as Stein never thought Justin would have been the one to slip, he was. And he didn’t have the sympathy to care that a sixteen year old boy had turned into a murderer, only the sympathy to care that Marie had been hurt by it, nearly split at seams he didn’t think he’d ever see exposed. There was only so much space in his sparse emotions for a scant few people to care about, and Marie, certainly, occupied the majority of it. 

But now, finally, she looked calmer than the entire time they were roughing it, on the run, on the lamb from God and the law and the world. And she was- not tipsy, but looser. Neither of them were really tipsy, despite the wine. Just fizzy enough to have something of a game of twenty questions, and as curious as he was, she was even more so. 

Of course, he didn’t mind. If there was anything he was bad at, it was denying her. Marie was a tender spot for him, in more ways than one, and ways he wasn’t entirely certain he was ready to analyze. Instead, he simply watched her, watched as she took another sip from her wine goblet, watched as her lips, already pinked from her thorough scrub down in the shower, reddened further from the drink. Stein, as though in solitary, took a fast swill from the bottle itself.

They’d already dug too deep into one another, poked and prodded at the tender spots. _“Do you still love Joe?”_ (No.) and _“Were you really interested in Medusa?”_ (Not romantically.) and _“What do you intend to do if marriage doesn’t work out for you?”_ (Try harder.) and _“Did you ever miss me?”_ (Sometimes. – _every day-)_

Marie toyed with the hem of her robe, her other clothes drying in the tub. He, in contrast, had decided to forgo the small luxury and simply threw on his undershirt and boxers, his own clothes dripping in the bathroom.

They’d been too close to care much about propriety, before. But certainly now, as well.

“So,” she started, letting the material she was fiddling with fall onto her thick, soft thigh, “did you ever find my scar ugly?” she asked, and the sound of it was soft and vulnerable and scared in the hotel room. One bed, too, the two of them draped across the mattress, sure to spill something. Like their metaphorical hearts, perhaps.

“No,” he answers, honestly, and she sags in relief, knowing how his soul feels when it’s truthful.

“Did you ever want it gone?” she pressed, singular eye searching his face. He thought back to when she lost it, when they were just children, barely older than Justin himself. He remembered the witch, how her electricity knew how to cleave, how it knew just where to hit him so that he would stay down. And how he had promised her, promised Marie, before, that he wouldn’t let her get hurt. How he had lifted her hammer form, sure Mjolnir would be able to take the attack, to deflect. And how the bolt had scratched across her, her shriek, her ear splitting, painful cries and wails. Especially afterward, when they were both so spent that they couldn’t stand, bleeding out, when he’d grabbed her face in one hand and looked into the ruined socket as she sobbed.

He felt his fingers twitch, remembering the warmth of her blood. “Yes,” he answered.

"Oh,” she says, tensing again, but he didn’t seem done.

“I should never have blocked with you.” The relief spreads through her like an alcoholic warmth, addicting.

“It wasn’t your fault,” she reassured.

"I did it.”

“The WITCH did it. You…you’re the only person who’s seen it and didn’t find it unpleasant. Hideous.” She swirled her wine around, still chatty, despite the pain. “My old boyfriends. . .ex-boyfriends used to say it was a turn off. I just learned to keep the eyepatch on. Joe…Joe was nice, but he never really knew how to act about it. I guess with the eyepatch off, I’m uglier. He couldn’t see me naked without the lights off, you know? I guess there’s a reason for that.”

"Your being ugly is a scientific falsehood. You’re the most aesthetically pleasing person I’ve witnessed. Eyepatch or otherwise.”

Instead of the immediate surge of pleasure he assumed she’d have, her soul swelling, she seemed closed off. Marie looked at him for a long moment before she set her wineglass off to the side and brought her thumb to the elastic holding her eyepatch round her head. As it slipped off, he watched the way her soul steeled itself in her chest. “Say that, again, then,” she said, and it straddled the thin, precarious line of a demand and a questioning request.

He made sure to look at the scar over her eyelid for a long time. He remembered how he stitched her up. The eye beneath the lid had been eviscerated, nothing but fragments and goop, the iris, once a warm, kind brown, turned ruddy and broken. The enucleating process had been horrific, cleaning her socket, severing the optic nerve. He remembered how he made his stitches as delicate as possible, close together, less likely to leave a scar, but she still had the remnants, like a lightning bolt, struck across her face. Because he blocked with her, the cut on his own face, garnered when the witch’s blast was deflected, had been relatively clean. He pried it open, now and then, to sew it shut once more. As though in solidarity.

And the truth was that he was a fucked up man. It wasn’t that he found her equally as beautiful with the eyepatch off. It was that, with it off, with the thick, telltale scarwork playing over her face, she was a storm of a woman personified, sitting across from him, then, just wanting to be called beautiful when bare.

“You,” he begins, painfully honest and intense, “are the most aesthetically pleasing person, Marie, that I have ever witnessed.” And he meant that, really. The scar didn’t bother him. It wasn’t a turn off. It was a memory on his tongue, in his bones. He remembered, even then, near a decade and a half later, how she had screamed and screamed and screamed, how she had looked, blood gushing down her face, how she had sobbed. And, yet, at the same time, he saw now how she looked at him, open, and nervous, and then, once she heard him speak, relieved, warm.

If anything, with the eyepatch off, it was a turn on. Not a turn off.

Then, and only then, did her soul burst open with the pleasure he thought she’d get. “Thank you,” she whispered, but he knew it was for more than just the compliment, and he felt the desperate urge to kiss her, then. Dangerous. Stupid. He’d felt it, before, often, sometimes as children, sometimes as adults, never having indulged in it, before. They were always around others, or he had too tight a reign on himself. Or he was _scared._ But, now, they were alone. Now, the wine was buzzing in his stomach and he was comfortable for the first time in years, and it was as though she was rendered in sepia before him, a woman who would turn to smoke between his fingers.

Marie was beautiful. She always had been. And she was even more than that.

Instead of reaching for her, he nodded, took another swill of wine, watched the way Marie smiled. Of all the curves on her body, that was the one that mattered most to him. And, at the same time as the tender heat curled in his stomach, his chest, snaking up his throat in words he might never be able to take back, words like ‘Perfect’ and 'Excellent’ and 'You are so good, Marie’, that same flickering warmth boiled his blood.

He had no right to be mad (and he was, mad in every way, a mad man, a man plagued by madness, a man mad for her, in so many ways, cared for her to madness) over past relationships she’d held that convinced her she was anything less than starlight in human shape.

He knew, deep in him, as irrational and untested the theory was, that her weapon form had been forged in a star because she WAS one, heat and light unfiltered. She was an entity unable to be pinned down. But certainly beautiful. Certainly. He knew she wouldn't care so much had her self confidence not been shattered, before. 

“You’re sweet, Frank,” she said, and her fingers crept over the bedspread to knock their pinkies together.

“No. Merely observant,” he assured, and her cheeks flooded with color, her hand resting ever closer to his. “Pink is pleasant on you. Cute,” he says, without thinking. Because this was the lightest he’d felt in a long time, here, with her.

His name was clear (or, at least, as clear as it could be), and she was looking at him like he was worth so much. She pinked further at his compliment, gently tapping her fingers over the back of his hand, giggling.

“Such a charmer,” she comments. “You should drink more often.”

“I’m not drunk, Marie,” he responds, and she laughs as she stretches.

"Then you must be in a good mood. You usually never compliment me so much.”

He was, as always, a man of such few words. But it was the meister’s duty to take care of his weapon’s wellbeing, emotional and otherwise.

Yet, why did he only feel willing to live up to such an obligation with her? He didn’t give a shit about Spirit’s well-being. Stein had blocked with him all the time, had cut him open, didn’t regret it, either. But Marie-

He even held her behind him when she was in weapon form most of the time. Had he allowed her to come so close to him so soon?

“I apologize,” he said, instead. Knowing that Marie needed reassurance in several ways, over several things. And whatever Marie needed he knew he would provide. Provide in ways that he would provide no one else.  

"No, it’s- I worry too much about what I look like,” she deflects, and he knows it is her coping tactic, so he doesn’t let her get away with it.

"If it’s any consolation, your appearance is pleasant.”

She snorts. “Yeah, sure. I’ve been out in the desert for weeks without a change of clothes. Pleasant.”

“You don’t need outfits to be appealing, Marie.”

“Or a shower?”

“That one helps,” he admitted, and her laugh twinkled like a bell, ringing in the air until he swore he could feel it on his skin, like a caress. And, then, she was really caressing him, her thumb rubbing his wrist, and he relaxed against the mattress, wine bottle hanging limply from his fingers as he rested his cheek against his arm, locking gazes with her as she mimicked his pose. Holding his breath, he felt as her palm whispered up his arm, over his shoulder, until she let it rest on his cheek. He watched as her eye shifted from one of his to the other, dancing.

“You’ve always been so good, Frank,” she said, and he swore she had a golden sheen to her skin.

“Only to you,” he admitted, knowing what horrors and atrocities he had committed. Hands so stained didn’t deserve to touch her.

“That’s a lie,” she told him, bluntly. “You don’t even see it, but you’re a good man.”

“I’m a good doctor. A good scientist,” he corrected her. “Not a good man.”

“You can lie to everyone else, Frank, but not to me,” she told him, and her thumb kept rubbing, so soothingly. Even with the shower both of them had, he didn’t feel up to shaving, and her palm rubbed against his stubble.

“Why are you so insistent, Marie?”

“Because I care about you. Always have. I always will.”

The space between them could have been miles, could have been millimeters, because she was both too close and too far away all at once. “I never understood why you did,” he confessed, and maybe he’d had too much to drink, or maybe he was just greedy. Eager for how she would stroke his ego in time with stroking over his jaw, eager to watch her mouth kindnesses he hadn’t experienced in so long.

“Because you’re worth caring about,” she provided, and it hurt in him, so suddenly, just who Marie was. How much she loved. Loved and loved and loved, gave and gave, never asking for anything, wanting, certainly, but never demanding. Hers was a care that warmed ice, melted it from a soul, hers was a touch that could be fire, pure, powerful, igniting to ash, lightning condensed. But it was also a touch of gentleness, of life, of heat just tender and fragile enough to lean to.

He couldn’t help but yield to her, his free arm coming across the mattress, bridging their gap, paralleling her to cup her cheek, and her breath hitched. He could take his palm to her throat, he knew. He could wreck her. She would certainly demolish him, but he could wreck her. He never would, though. The unpleasant thought lurched away from him as she smiled at him wider. He never would. Never again. Never hurt her. Never never never.

“Marie,” he murmured, brought his fingers skittering over her flesh until his index finger was settling close to her scarred eyelid, and he traced it, knowing the sensation was gone on the actual scarwork. Her breath hitched as he did so, looping his touch around and around, so hypnotically.

“Yeah?” she asked, and he felt the mattress dip closer to him. But he said nothing for a long, long while, only ran his fingers over the side of her face. He felt her cheek, her ear, even let his fingernail ghost over her lips, watching how her remaining eye darkened, iris dilating. “Frank?” she whispered, and he realized he was in a hotel room, on a hotel bed, with Marie Mjolnir. His partner.

Marie who cared so deeply, who followed him into a desert even if he could have been the murderer. Likely was the murderer. Hadn’t been.

“Marie,” he replied. “Marie…did you truly come with me only to uphold a promise to Joe?”

It took her a moment to reply, and it was all so quiet, tender touches, whispered words, as though the world had stopped outside of the window. As though the world was the slope of her body and only that. “No,” she confessed. “No- I would have gone with you, regardless.”

She let her thumb come to the plushness of his lower lip as he let his fingers tangle in her hair. They had been close in so many ways, before. And then it had all crashed. No resonance as he fell to tatters. Now, he swore he felt it curl around them, an electric current that could spark the entire room, illuminate it even without any light.

“I wouldn’t resent you if you didn’t,” he told her, and that was true, too. She had a right to happiness, and, often, that occurred outside and away from him.

“I know,” she said, smiling, and looking happier and more at peace than in a long time. Had she ever looked so carefree, before? Before this Kishin nonsense that brought her back to the dry sand of Nevada and the cool sterilization of his house that she made home. As he ran his hand through her messy curls, she shifted, making it so that she was coming closer to him, resting her cheek near his shoulder as he crooked his arm to cradle her, keeping her secure.

And it was too close, suddenly, and not nearly close enough. Not nearly. It was dangerous, too. Because he wanted to be tangled in her, completely. So close they’d resemble two strands in a DNA helix.

“Marie-”

“How much have you had to drink, Frank?” she asked, running her hand from his jaw down his neck, stretching the collar of his undershirt so it gaped open, revealed his collar bones, his sternum.

“Not much.”

“Then you’ll remember this in the morning?”

“Will you?”

“Yes,” she said, and he felt her soul inch ever closer to his. “I’d want to remember it for a while.”

“I’m not much of a memory,” he confessed.

“No, you’re the best kind,” she assured him, and the gap between them bridged and bridged and bridged. She hesitated after a moment, looping a strand of his hair around her finger. “Would it be wrong to…to kiss you?” she asked.

“Only if you didn’t want to,” he said, ignoring how his heart was all but humming in his ribcage, so hard it could punch out of his sternum, were it so inclined.

“Do you want to?” she asked. “Because if you don’t, I won’t. I’d never- I wouldn’t ever want to make you uncomfortable.”

And he could have laughed because- Marie. Marie, how could she ever? His Marie who was made of heat and spark and sun and starlight.

“We couldn’t take it back,” he warned, instead, needing to know. Needing for her to know. One did not mess around with their meisters or weapons. Not sexually, not otherwise. Not to kiss. Not to fuck. Not to love. Not unless they were willing to throw the rules away. Not unless they were willing to risk it all. Not unless they were well and truly invested.

It was unfair to her, really. She had so many people who would murder and claw and beg to be in his position. She was beautiful, kind, tender, smart. She was everything. She was an awe inspiring person, like looking out at a natural disaster, at a hurricane, and wanting to feel her rain slick his skin. She could have anyone. Anyone could be her person.

It had always been her, for him, though.

“What if I don’t want to take it back?” she whispered, and his hold on her tightened for just a moment. “What would you do, then?”

“Anything you’d want,” he told her, and maybe that was desperate. Maybe that was too much, too vulnerable. It hurt, the truth, the knowledge. She had never needed him but he had always been so wanting for her.

“And if I want you to kiss me?”

He felt, suddenly, so over his head. Drowning in the moment, in her. And, yet, at the same time, it was all rendered in such stark, startling clarity that he was surprised. There was no hesitation, but no rushing, either. Instead, his mouth opened immediately, speaking cleanly and without regret. “I’d kiss you.”

“Please?” she asked, and it was like he was a satellite trapped in her orbit, the gravity of her, because he leaned in immediately, breathing hard, not caring what happened tomorrow.

There was a moment, right before he was completely sucked in, that he felt her lips just a hairsbreadth away. He felt her breathe in, a swift, fast gasp, and then her hand flattened against the back of his head and he felt her pull him closer, her knee bumping his, her hips tilting toward him. And he realized this was _home_.

Her. There. Anywhere. It was home in the dunes when they’d rough it. It was home in the lab when she complained about want for more teacups. It was home at the school, on missions, and in a hotel room, foreign, small. His lips brushed by hers with the electricity of a storm, the magnetism of ferromagnetic metals finally meeting, and she sighed his name, turning her head just enough to melt them together.

He and she into we, into us, into everything. He dropped the wine bottle, freed both hands. The arm previously crooked only came in farther, splaying over her shoulder, and the other wrapped about her waist, tugging her chest to chest with him, feeling her breathe, how her ribs expanded, how alive and amazing and strong she was, and he never wanted to leave that moment, that tipping point, where they’d admitted without admitting that they were in this for it all.

The end of the world loomed, a guillotine above their heads, swaying and swaying on a fraying rope, and yet he let his wrist cover her neck, let his body curl near atop her.

“Marie,” he murmured, taking in slivers of air in the brief moments they were apart, but she came in for more kisses, unwilling to be apart. Her skin was responsive and near burning, and she made him feel _alive_.

“Don’t-” A swift kiss, teeth and tongue. “Stop-” Another, tender, her fingernails scratching gently over his scalp. “Kissing-” Once more, sloppy, now, the corner of his mouth, migrating to nip at his lower lip as he groaned. “Me.”

This one he let his hand slide up her neck to hold her in place for. This one he opened his mouth, tasting of smoke and wine, of faint mint from the toothpaste provided in the hotel bathroom, and she traced his teeth, deepening their kiss.

And he realized, then, as their souls resonated outside of battle, that this was why they were barred from romantic entanglements with their partners. Because he knew that, as much as he didn’t give a fuck about Lord Death’s policies, before, he certainly cared less about them, now. The missions, the secrets, the unpleasant work- how could he hide it from her? Especially now, when she was so pliant and lovely, the very definition, that he didn’t want his hands to ever exist without remembering the sweet slide of her skin. That she, this, was worth throwing it all away for.

Outside, the temperature dropped, the moon laughing and grinning in the sky, seen through the sliver of curtain, glancing into the room. The only witness as his fingers skittered to open her robe at the shoulders, as she breathed his name and he rolled them over so she was on her back, his mouth descending down her neck, but not before he tenderly kissed her scarred eyelid. He was hungry for her, always had been, and she would give and give. Marie’s fingers looped through his hair as she let her eye flutter open, catching the window, the moon.

They were breaking the law and the wine bottle had spilled over the carpet and she knew he didn’t have a condom- (and were they going to need one, anyway?) and that they shouldn’t be doing this, with each other, not now, not ever.

“Frank,” she said, only, so lovingly, tracing the shell of his ear as he ghosted his teeth over her pulse, repeating her name back at her in the same tone, and she wanted this, wanted him, wanted him for so long, so deep that the thought thrummed between them on a constant loop until she knew it was mutual.  

And she thought, _God,_ if her heart was pounding like this, her mouth coming up into a grin, her skin so responsive to Stein’s touch and his soul so much happier than she had ever felt it; if the moon could smile as it looked down upon them- Well, they had to be doing something right.


End file.
